Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii has unfortunately made a GenAI game

Yuji Horii, the creator of legendary franchise Dragon Quest and classic adventure game Portopia, has been excited about Generative AI and its usage in video games for some time. Specifically, he's been interested in the idea of things like NPCs in games being controlled by AI chatbots to help them be "a friend to each individual player." One of these AI chatbots, called Slimey, was announced to be added to the japan-exclusive Dragon Quest X MMO earlier this year but hasn't released yet.

Now, as initially reported by Famitsu, the 43-year video game industry veteran has released Interrogation Room Komiya, a new mystery-adventure game created in "about 30 minutes," completely with the Claude generative AI.

Anecdotally, AI seems to be more widely accepted in the East. Scrolling through Horii's replies to his post revealing the game, however, seem to show more of a negative reception than expected.

Many fans, several of which are responding in Japanese, said they were outright disappointed with Horii. One user, @gomingo0610 said:

I've always loved Dragon Quest, so this is all the more disappointing given my deep respect for it.

Did Mr. Horii properly obtain consent for the data used in this game?
Wasn't it the case that generative AI was used to copy, analyze, and extract from a multitude of copyrighted works without permission?

As creators ourselves, I believe it is essential to show respect for others' works, authors, and copyrights!

I doubt that a few hundred, or even thousand, Dragon Quest and fans of Horii himself shouting at him on twitter will change his mind. He is a 72 year-old game developer who is trying to keep up with the times, rather than drift off into retirement.

Hopefully, this doesn't mean that the recently rebooted Dragon Quest 12 is full of generative AI slop, too.